A thousand specks of dust in the air
by TheWhiteCrayon
Summary: She blows the powder off the table, her breath gently lifting it up in the air, pushing it apart into thousands of small, individual slivers of what they once were, hardly even visible by the naked eye. She tries to watch the dusts float away from her, only to realise they're already gone and long forgotten (by anyone but her). / Or, the life and times of Gillian Foster. (oneshot)


**A thousand specks of dust in the air**

 _._

 _She blows the powder off the table, her breath gently lifting it up in the air, pushing it apart into thousands of small, individual slivers of what they once were, hardly even visible by the naked eye. She tries to watch the dusts float away from her, only to realise they're already gone and long forgotten (by anyone but her). / Or, the life and times of Gillian Foster._

.

 **This is a companion peace to 'something you might describe as love', but the stories can be read separately. I hope you enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own lie to me.**

.

Her mother dies when she's thirteen years old. Before that, their family is pretty normal. Her mom is kind and funny but strict and her dad is sweet and strong and _amazing._ He loves her so much and he always takes her everywhere she wants to go and she can talk to him about anything.

(and she's _happy_ )

After that, everything changes.

x

She falls in love with Alec when she's sixteen. He's moving into his first _very own_ apartment, right next to her and her dad's. He's four whole years older than her and he thinks she's _s_ u _c_ h _a_ c _h_ i _l_ d , but he's always nice to her and he always smiles at her in the hallway.

One day, when she's sitting on the front steps of their building in the pouring rain because she's accidentally locked herself out (and her dad doesn't hear the doorbell when he's sleeping off his hangover) he invites her in. His apartment is a giant mess and even though she _hates_ messes, its kind of perfect.

Pretty soon she spends more time at his place than she does at home and he buys her icecream and pudding and lets her clean up and he never drinks and she has her own key and everything is wonderful, really.

x

Her dad beats her into the hospital with a fractured rib and a broken collarbone when she's seventeen and a half. He's hit her while on a drunk several times before that, but not like this (not like broken bones and empty eyes and fading cries for mercy).

When she wakes up, Alec is the first person she sees. He's sitting on the side of her bed, holding her hand. _I'm getting you out of there_ he whispers as soon as she opens her eyes. Then, he carefully kisses her lips (fortheveryfirsttime) and she's not sure if its that or the painkillers that gently cloud her brains.

Alec keeps his word and within a month they've moved away from the tiny apartment that holds so many memories and away from her dad whom she misses so much (but she misses him more when she _sees_ him) and into an even tinier attic above Ms. Cooper's bakery.

They work hard and don't have a lot to show for it, but its okay because they have each other and this is their _f_ r _e_ s _h_ s _t_ a _r_ t and that's not _supposed_ to be easy.

(it's supposed to be _worth it_ )

x

They're almost like a little _family_ now, and sometimes that's absolutely wonderful, and sometimes its pretty damn hard. The pressure is especially heavy on Alec, and when she's twenty years old Gillian first finds a dash of the _white powder_ lying on their bedroom floor.

At first she thinks its powdered sugar, (only they haven't actually had any powdered sugar at home in over a year, so) but then she _tastes_ it and ( _no no no, not again,_ p _l_ e _a_ s _e not again)_ realises its something else.

She confronts him about it as soon as he gets home and he _promises_ (promises, promises) her it was a one time thing and he's _not_ addicted and he _won't_ do it again (and he wouldn't _do that to her_ ).

But nine days later she finds another small container of n _o_ t _powdered sugar_ hidden underneith the couch and

 _I'm so sorry honey, I'm sorry_

(and)

 _Everything is just so stressful lately_

(and)

 _I can stop whenever I want to, really_

(and)

 _I won't be like your dad, Gill, you_ k _n_ o _w me, don't you?_

(but she also _knew_ her dad, so)

At exactly twentyone days before her twentyfirst birthday Gillian makes the decision that she _won't_ let this one slide through her fingers and she _won't_ give up on Alec and

(she'll _s_ a _v_ e him like he saved her)

x

Alec gets the help he needs and Gillian (goes to school and does her homework and works two jobs and pays the bills and cleans the house and holds him tight and) does the rest.

She loves him though, and that makes it worth it. ( _Here's a secret though;_ It's _still_ the _worst_ and the _hardest_ fucking time of her life)

A year later, Alec is clean again and Gillian has a Phd in pschychology.

Five years later, they're married and they both have _good_ jobs and they live in a pretty house just outside of town.

(and they live _h_ a _p_ p _i_ l _y_ e _v_ e _r_ a _f_ t _e_ r)

(But _really_ -does anyone ever?)

x

Cal Lightman isn't like anyone else she's ever met before. (not like anyone else she's ever _cared about_ before.) He's adventurous and crazy and sometimes a little overwhelming, and even though he can be an insensitive asshole some (most of the) times, she can see through all that.

She can look into his eyes, behind all the masks and walls and defenses he's build for himself, and see someone _amazing_. (which is ironic really, because isn't _he_ the one whose supposed to be able to read everyone?)

When he asks her to start a company together she doesn't hesitate to say yes. (people call her crazy but she just calls it an _adventure_ )

(she regrets a lot of bad decisions in her life, but not that one)

x

When they first start out, they're low budget in the most _literal_ way. She arrives at his house every morning at eight a.m. and she always meets Zoey and Emily in the hallway, on their way out.

Emily always runs up to hug Gillian's middle, squealing her name in delight, and Zoey always greets her with an impatient smile, pulling her daughter away from her.

When she walks into their office (or the Lightmans' kitchen) Cal's already waiting for her there, all of the paperwork from their newest case spread across the kitchen table, with their signature drinks (cold english tea for him and black coffee with too much sugar for her) planted somewhere right in the middle of it.

 _(they've come a long way since then)_

(but they still drink black coffee and cold tea in his office at the start of each new day)

x

When she's thirtyfive she finds out that she can't have a baby -not ever. (She tells Alec its okay, but he doesn't know she cries for three hours straight in the bathroom the next day.)

(she tries to be fine for a little while but _s_ o _m_ e _t_ h _i_ n _g_ i _s_ m _i_ s _s_ i _n_ g)

One year later, they decide to adopt a child. And the range they're made to go through ( _just to_ _become a parent_ ) is absolute _torture._

But then in the end, its all _completely, utterly, absolutely_ worth it because they have a _daughter_ now -and she didn't even know it was possible to love someone as much as she loves Sophie.

x

Just when she thinks everything is _finally_ falling into place and they're _finally_ happy, everything falls apart again.

(And this time, it doesn't merely slip away from her. It doesn't gradually break down, leaving her with a pile of broken pieces that are just waiting for her to start all over and puzzle them back together. This time her life doesn't fall apart in a way that can just be fixed again, that can be build up again.)

(This time, there's a sudden explosion, right in the center of her universe. It's loud and messy and it's shattering everything in its path into millions of tiny, unfixable shards – starting with the things she loves the most.)

It's a beautiful sunny Saturday morning in april when they get the phonecall. (and even after all their pleas and cries and arguments and curses, the truth is still the truth)

Their child is being taken away from them and starting tomorrow, they're not going to be parents anymore.

(And Alec cries and yells and swears and punches the wall until his knuckles start to bleed.)

(And Gillian just lies there on the floor, curled up into a ball, as her surroundings slowly fade away into a deep, dark nothing.)

x

They don't talk about her (ever).

The day after they're made to give up Sophie, Alec paints the pretty pink and yellow nursery (she spent months decorating) white and he sells the craddle and the rocking chair (she so carefully picked out) and he throws away the fluffy stuffed animals (all of which she named) and he buries the memory of their daughter.

They don't talk about her, no.

(But she thinks about her every second of every day.)

x

A few months later she finds the old familiair _white powder_ again, right in the middle of the kitchen table, this time (like he'd been so indifferent, so _vacant,_ he hadn't even bothered to hide it anymore).

(And she thinks maybe the tiny specks of powder are symbolics for the last ruïns of her life, the tiniest _splinters_ that are left of her shattered being, crumbled to _dust_ that can just be blown away by a whiff of air.)

She blows the powder off the table, her breath gently lifting it up in the air, pushing it apart into thousands of small, individual slivers of what they once were, hardly even visible by the naked eye.

She tries to watch the dusts float away from her, only to realise they're already gone and long forgotten (by anyone but her).

x

For a while, she tries to fix him again, she tries to fix _them_ again, (because, hell, it worked the first time, right? She can do it again, right?) only to find that this time, Alec just doesn't _want_ to be fixed anymore.

(that this time it really is over, and there's no going back to who they were before)

She gives up on him, just like she gave up on her father all those years ago.

And maybe (just _m_ a _y_ b _e_ ) she's _toxic_ and she poisons the people who get too close. (Maybe everything she touches just _dies._ )

x

The thing about Cal Lightman is that he's just too damn _comfortable._ He knows her so well that she can't hold back her tears around him, she can't hide her secrets from him, she can't walk away from him and tell him to back the hell off.

Because before she even knows it, she's already falling apart into his arms, crying into his shoulder and spilling _all_ of her guts. (even the ones she herself didn't even know were there)

She just can't help it, can't help letting him _see_ her (when she _isn't_ strong and when she _isn't_ beautiful and when she _can't_ be what everybody needs her to be.)

x

 _We did everything that you asked_ she whispers as the tears begin to fill her eyes. _Let him go. Please._

 _Foster_ he quietly scolds her.

 _(don't hurt him)_ she wants to say.

 _(he's all I have left)_ she wants to cry.

 _(take me instead)_ she wants to beg.

She walks away and closes the door behind her.

x

She watches him walk away from her, slowly but determindedly and without looking back even once.

(and she really, honestly thought this was going to be _the one_ , and that they'd grow old together, and that _the best_ would be _yet to come_ , and she'd never have to get her heart broken ever again)

 _He doesn't want me to follow him_ she says.

 _No, they're going to move him again_ he says. _Change his name._

 _(she tries to hold on to the dusts in the air, but the wind is taking them far, far away from her)_

 _I liked the one he had_ she whispers.

And with that David Burns goes up in flames, leaving her with nothing but smoke and ashes to remember him by. _(O, the irony.)_

(And then the rain comes and washes the smoldering remains away, and then that's gone, too.)

x

Cal is the _gambler_ of the two of them, he's the _risktaker_ , the _adventurer_. He likes to bet everything he has on some awful chance, just for the rush of it, just for the thrill.

Gillian is more _responsible_ , she's the _rational_ one, the _sensible_ one. She doesn't like to bet anything she doesn't want to lose, and she likes to stay on the safe side.

(At the end of the day they've both lost everything and they're left with nothing but each other.)

x

He smiles like a mischievous child, proud as hell of the mess he's just made and already looking forward to the reactions he's bound to trigger.

(Maybe he's caught a giant bull-frog and is about to let it loose on the teacher's desk, or maybe he's drawn all over the freshly painted stark white wall with a permanent marker, or maybe he's simply stolen a cookie from the top shelf of the cupboard, knocking over the jar and shattering it to pieces in the proces.)

He smiles like a man with a secret, a mystery, that only _he_ gets to keep.

She wouldn't admit it for anything, but she kind of likes that smile.

x

Cal Lightman knows her better than anyone else.

(He knows she likes her coffee with more sugar than caffeine and he knows that snuggling up on the couch in her pyjamas on a rainy afternoon is her favourite thing to do.)

(He knows there's a purple teddybear with one eye hidden underneith her bed -the only one she'd been able to save from the trash can- and he knows she holds onto it tight during lonely nights.)

(He knows that powdered sugar makes her uncomfortable and he knows that his tendency to lose himself in a game of poker or roulettes scares her more than she can say.)

 _I always did have more trouble reading you than anyone else_.

x

 _I need you_ she says. _And I know you need me too. Please stop pushing me away._

 _You know this only ends one way Gill_ he says. _One of us eventually leaves and the other one gets hurt. And I can't let that happen, Gill -not to us. I can't lose you._

(And it feels like she's being blown apart by the words on his breath, floating away like dust in the air.)

 _Hurting is part of life, Cal_ she says. _And even so, you're not going to lose me. Not ever._

 _But everybody leaves in the end_ he whispers _._

And then he walks away.

(and then she's alone again)

x

He finds her again, about an hour later, sitting alone on the floor in her office, all red eyes and flushed face and messy hair sticking to her wet cheeks.

 _I fucked up, love, didn't I?_ he says. _I'm sorry. I'm so scared._

(she faintly notices that its the first time he's ever said that to her)

 _Its okay_ she says.

 _No, its not_ he says. (and then) _I love you._

He picks up the broken pieces, finds the lost shards and filters the dusts out of the air, and he puts her back together again.

 _I love you too._

(He makes her whole again.)


End file.
